OH THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND BY AN ENGLISH LIBERAL “ Thus to persist In doing wrong, extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy.” Shakespeare i LONDON * KEGAN PAUL,TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1884 523* £,W,S. ~ 5(5 0 . 9 4-15 nu e>ir TO THOSE OF THE WRITER'S FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN WHO MAKE SIMPLE JUSTICE THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE OF THEIR POLITICAL CONDUCT, AND TO THOSE ESPECIALLY WHO WOULD RATHER HEAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST THAN FOR THEIR OWN IDEAS, THESE CHAPTERS ARE DEDICATED. CONTENTS x>«- Apology CHAPTER I. Channels of Information II. Standpoint of View III. Ireland a Nation IV. Castle Government V. Rebellion VI. Faith and Fatherland VII. People and Parties VIII. The Orange Society IX. England and Ireland Postscript— To Enlightened Irishmen APOLOGY. — «o« - The following pages are the outcome of personal inves¬ tigation and experience during a continued residence in the country to which they refer. During that time I have, as far as possible, accepted the principles of the National party, they being, indeed, merely liberal princi¬ ples applied to Ireland ; I have spoken as an Englishman at public meetings, and even contributed to the National press. It has been my earnest endeavour to probe the questions affecting the government of this suffering country to their inmost depths ; and my object in writing these pages is to communicate to others, who have not had my opportunities, the facts which I have learnt myself, and thus pour a flood of light through the dense clouds of misapprehension which shroud the public mind in England in regard to Ireland. The reader must prepare for much that will surprise him. He must prepare not only to receive new infor¬ mation, but to regard many known facts in a new light. But it is my firm conviction that a candid examination into this matter, on the basis herein set forth, will lead t:o a determination to discontinue our past policy in Vlll APOLOGY. Ireland, and to deal with her in the only manner con¬ sistent with liberal principles. To Conservatives I do not appeal. This country is now being governed in their interests and in accordance with their ideas. It is to the Liberal party, which has hitherto stultified itself, and departed from its traditions upon this question, that the work of establishing a different system must fall. The present effort will have fulfilled its purpose if it succeeds in any degree in hastening this righteous end. THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. ■♦o* CHAPTER I. CHANNELS OF INFORMATION. At the present time it is practically impossible for Englishmen to obtain an impartial account of doings in the other island. All their information is derived from two sources, National and Conservative. Unfortunately, while the reports of the Na¬ tionalists, who are of course biased themselves, are invariably doubted or wholly disbelieved, nearly every word which comes from their, and our, unflinching opponents is accepted as unquestionable truth. The Irish official and landed classes have probably as little regard for truth, where their interests are concerned, as any other body of men under the sun, yet it is their views and their assertions exclusively which are eagerly swallowed in England, where they arrive through the unsus¬ pected medium of a Liberal minister or newspaper. It might serve no good end to specify instances of this conservativizing of information to which I refer, particularly as I am impeaching not individuals but principles. Yet, to take a mild example, it will perhaps surprise many people to learn that the principal Irish correspondent of a newspaper which is reputed the im¬ partial Jupiter of the press, is the editor of a bitter Conser¬ vative journal in Dublin; an extreme politician, in short, whose opinions are as unbiased and whose facts are as trustworthy as those of Lord Salisbury himself. The news-agency re¬ porters throughout the country are, as a rule, men of the same class—editors of local landlord prints, even if not actually in the employ of the Castle. Such are the people whose tele¬ grams are permitted to mould and direct day by day Liberal opinion on Irish questions. o THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. Under these circumstances it is no wonder that the people of England were so long kept in the dark with regard to the dis¬ tress of 1879, and that most of them even now believe the Land Act of 1881 to have been a permanent settlement of the land question. In order to show how distorted are the views current at home concerning transactions here, I will mention two affairs which have passed under my own observation, although they properly belong to another section. The first is the case of Mr. T. Harrington. This gentleman delivered a speech to the National farmers of Westmeath county, in which he exhorted them not to neglect their labourers who had helped them in their struggle for the Land Act. The Castle seized the opportunity to arrest him for intimidation and thrust him into prison. While in confinement, he was elected as their member of Parliament by the very men for intimidating whom he had been imprisoned. Was he instantly released by the repentant government which had thus blundered? No; he was kept in his cell in spite of every protestation and denunciation on the part of his alleged victims. And I suppose that the majority of the Liberal party believe to this day that that man was rightfully punished. We now come to the appointment of Mr. R. O’Shaughnessy, a Home Rule member, to a post of emolument in Dublin Castle. Now, for some months at least before that appointment was made, this gentleman was more or less at variance with the party led by Mr. Parnell. In all the Nationalist newspapers he had in consequence been attacked and, rightly or wrongly, denounced. For his support of the Affirmation Bill, over which the Nationalists were hoping to defeat the Government, he was especially reprobated. In short, I shall not be accused of mis¬ representation if I say that by the National party, or rather by over three-fourths of Ireland, Mr. O’Shaughnessy was looked upon as a political opponent, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, his appointment to an office under the crown was, if I mistake not, held up to the people in England as a distinct favour be¬ stowed upon the Irish party, an instance of willingness to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas. Indeed, Liberals generally, no doubt, consider the Irish a very ungrateful people for receiving this olive-leaf so unfavourably as they did. It is not my object to rewrite the history of the past few years, nor have I the space to do so. It will be sufficient if I impress upon the reader that what has occurred in one case may have occurred in all. It will probably be asked how it comes CHANNELS OF INFORMATION 3 to pass that those English Liberal politicians who have taken part in the government of Ireland allowed themselves to be deceived in matters of the sort. But in the first place it is necessary to consider the conditions under which they laboured, the surroundings in which they imbibed their opinions. This we are about to do. Englishmen are not to be wondered at for attaching some weight to the utterances of Irishmen against their native country. It seems difficult to believe that any class of men could be prepared to tell actual falsehoods against their own land and their fellow-countrymen. The peculiar position of these people can only be understood by a deeper examination than is generally given to the subject, and the explanation will be found lower down. But during the course of centuries public opinion, not only in England but abroad, has been so thoroughly prejudiced against this country that a knave’s lie to her discredit is accepted before an honest man’s statement of facts in her favour. Thus it is within the power of any of her sons to do her incalculable injury, by pretending to confirm the monstrous ideas which he finds ready planted in the breasts of those who have no means of investigating for them¬ selves. But I trust I have sufficiently exposed the way in which England derives her information on Irish affairs; and it now remains to account for that strange perversion of Liberals into Tories which too often follows the advent of Englishmen to Irish shores, sending them back often worse than they came. I cannot do this better than by a quotation from a letter, explaining the process to which English statesmen are subjected who come over here with the message of conciliation. “ It cannot have escaped your observation, you must (if you have ever considered the Irish question) have been surprised to see, that two statesmen, both of whom came over here with the professed purpose of governing Ireland in accordance with her own ideas, and both of whom possessed the reputation of being friendly to Irish aspirations, in succession adopted the same line of repressive policy and incurred the reprobation of the country. Mr. Forster and Mr. Trevelyan were each nomi¬ nally prepared to inaugurate a new era in which liberal treatment should take the place of that system of tyranny and espionage which has for centuries sat like a blight upon this land. Yet, Mr. Forster had not been very long in this country before his measures began to bear a resemblance to those of the countless oppressors who had preceded him, and long before his resigna- 4 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRE LA HD. tion of office he was held in universal odium by the very people who had hailed his advent with sanguine enthusiasm. He outdid even his Conservative predecessor; he left no means untried to arouse a quenchless hatred in the breasts of his subjects; he made his name a byword and a reproach through¬ out the four corners of the kingdom. “ Now Ireland rejoices in the possession of a Radical and an ‘advanced’ thinker in the shape of Mr. Trevelyan ; but she is little better off. He too has fallen into the old worn groove of repression of the national feeling, and appears little likely to get out of it. You cannot but be impressed by these facts, and it is important that the true explanation of them should be put before you. That explanation will not be found in the superficial calumnies of the Conservative press, about 4 in¬ terested agitators * and 4 fictitious discontent.’ When a man, who has no food to eat, and no place, except a voluntary prison, to sleep in, murders the cause of his distress, the result is not due to interested agitators, nor is it the fruit of fictitious discontent. “ The cause of this, as of so many of Ireland’s woes, has. been the faction of native Irishmen who subsist upon the oppression of their country. These men, who care more for their class than for their nation, make it their business to per¬ sistently vilify the race from which they sprang. Irish them¬ selves, they delight in using the word Irish as a synonym for base, ignorant, crafty, and vindictive, furnishing in their own persons the best justification for the character with which they seek to invest their fellow-countrymen. Their means of exist¬ ence are supplied by a rotten state of affairs, the abolition of which would be their ruin. It is, therefore, their inclination, their interest, and their imperative necessity to impress every successive governor of the country with their own ideas. They endeavour, and usually with great success, to make him believe that they are the only part of their nation whose well¬ being deserves his consideration. They mould him into the conviction that Irishmen generally are incapable of managing their own affairs in a just and rational manner. They intention¬ ally emphasize the indications of lawlessness throughout the island. They tamper with and inspire the police reports. An assault is magnified into an outrage, a drunken scuffle into a serious riot. The private characters of the National leaders are blackened. Their views and position are misrepresented. In short, a network of calumny and intrigue is woven about the CHANNELS OF INFORMATION. 5 new-comer by these unscrupulous men, poison is poured into his ears, he is surrounded from the moment of his landing, and no art, no trick, no lie that can corrupt him is left unused by these hereditary traitors to their native soil.” It will be observed that no attempt is here made to charge English Liberals with deliberate and wilful hostility to Ireland, or with spontaneous abandonment of justice. Ignorance is at the root of these sad transformation scenes, in which we see the champions of Greek and Bulgarian freedom buckling on their swords, to take part in a cruel and unreasonable tyranny over a people every whit as deserving of freedom as the dwellers by the Danube or the Mediterranean. But it is not only statesmen who are thus affected by residence in Ireland. Numbers of Englishmen come over with the most friendly feelings towards this country, and go back, after but a brief sojourn, steeped to the eyes in anti-Irishism. This is the result of two causes : first, the fact that the Englishman expects to find the inhabitants of this country in possession of the same ideas and standards of thought as himself; second, that the National Irishmen whom he meets expect him to see every transaction with their eyes, before he has been long enough in this country to appreciate the new light which sur¬ rounds him. And both parties put down the shortcomings of the other to prejudice, stupidity, wilful malice, or criminal indifference, and begin to hate each other accordingly. An¬ other fatal influence creeps in—the differences in religion. Too often the well-meant expressions of the Saxon give offence to the religious susceptibilities of the Catholic Irishman, and he finds that even political accord can barely outweigh the in¬ herent antagonism in creed and national character. What is the result ? He turns instinctively to the Conservatives, whose religious and national sentiments identify themselves with his own. Instead of distrust or coldness, he meets with welcome and almost homage, and as in his own country he has never looked upon party barriers as vitally important, he falls with lazy resignation into the ranks of the Loyalists. Thus is the chorus swelled which for ever dins into the ear of England—that ancient lie, that every Irish patriot is a criminal or a hypocrite, and that the miserable minority of oppressors, and they only, have rights to be respected. 6 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. CHAPTER II. STANDPOINT OF VIEW. The preceding chapter was written to open the eyes of the reader, to show him that he was ignorant of the real state of affairs, and to explain the causes of that ignorance. So long as he considers himself to possess a knowledge of the Irish question, from a cursory perusal of English histories and newspapers, it is hopeless to attempt to tell him the truth. The standpoint of view must be entirely changed, and he must try for the time being to consider himself, I will not say an Irishman, but an American or foreigner of any kind, trying to obtain the real facts in the case. It is a common saying among a certain class of politicians that the Orange faction is here as a garrison for England. That is not the true state of the case. It is the English who are in Ireland as a garrison for the Orangemen; and till this fact is fully grasped by Englishmen, they will be unable to conduct themselves rightly in dealing with this great, this greatest, question of the day. How long is our nation going to lend itself to this degra¬ dation ? How long shall we consent to be a tool in the hands of landlords and official classes, trampling down our fellow- creatures, exiling them to the ends of the earth, throwing them into prison, giving them up to the scaffold, that their enemies and oppressors may thrive and fatten, and then come over here to strengthen the hands of that Conservative party to which we, as a people, owe the perpetuation of everything bad that our ignorant ancestors ever did ? Let us look at Ireland as it is, not as our teachers tell us it is. A car-drive through the city of Dublin, a fortnights STANDPOINT OF VIEW. 7 excursion to Killarney, is not enough to give any one an insight into Irish affairs. Nor can the National press be recommended, except to those prepared to make very liberal allowances for the hatred of England and even Englishmen with which its pages teem, not to speak of the Catholic, or rather Papal, spirit which pervades a certain section. I will not appeal to the terrible history of this island, I will not even go back to the shameful Union; I will put this plain question : Does the Irish nation, as a whole, desire or thrive under English rule ? There is but one answer to this. From the lips of the majority of their members of Parliament—a majority increasing every year, and certain to be enormous in a couple of years— comes the answer, No. From the daily paper which has a circulation double that of any other in Ireland, from half a dozen weekly papers in Dublin, and dozens more over the country, from vast public meetings in all four provinces, from the open admission of even the Conservatives themselves, comes the answer that the vast majority of Irishmen are dissatisfied, deeply and permanently discontented, with our rule. As for the con¬ dition of the nation under it, that is the theme even of its oppressors, who of course take good care to attribute the evils to the spirit of sedition—in plain words, the spirit of John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell. Let the brief tale be told once more in few words. During the past thirty years, Ireland has lost three millions of her sons. Last year over a hundred thousand left the country. Trade is on a steady decline. Manufactures and the growth of flax are on the wane. More land is going out of cultivation every year. In fact, if these things continue for another thirty years, half Ireland will be desert, and the remainder peopled by scarce a million inhabi¬ tants. Reader, suppose the above words applied to Bulgaria under Turkish rule, to Poland under Russia. Would not your fervent sympathies be with the oppressed ? Would not their leaders be feasted in London, their secret soldiers be armed from Birmingham, their funds drawn from English purses, and their ships equipped in English ports? Yet solemnly, and after the most sincere and impartial consideration, must I declare that there is no single difference of importance in the cases. The man who admits that Ireland is being ruled against her will, and is suffering under it, must admit her right to another kind of rule. If he does not, he is no Liberal, and these pages 8 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRE LA HE. were not written for him. The grand mistake which I have to contend with is the idea that Ireland is being constitutionally governed. Let us examine the grounds for this assertion. First, the present union is the result of a law passed by her own Parliament. Second, she returns a hundred members to the English House. Third, her inhabitants enjoy the same rights and privileges as Englishmen. And no doubt the vast majority of Englishmen honestly believe these statements. The replies to them, however, are very simple. First, the law was passed by a bribed majority of one in a Protestant House representing only the minority, under pressure of armed disturbances fomented by the Castle. Second, the Irish members are returned under protest—to protest rather than to legislate ; and they are silenced, outvoted, and expelled at pleasure by the English majority. Third, Irishmen do not enjoy the same rights as Englishmen. This last point cannot be gone into fully here ; it is the subject, more or less, of every chapter. The trial by jury will afford the best instance. Timothy Kelly was tried three times before a jury in Dublin for the Phoenix Park murders. During all that time, as has since been reported, his confession in writing was lying up at the Castle; a confidential document, of course, the very existence of which is, no doubt, officially denied still. Two of the juries which tried him disagreed; in other words, there were one or two men in each who professed to think him not guilty. These men—it is no secret—were Nationalists. The final jury was commonly stated to be an exclusively Loyalist or Constitutionalist one. Now, I do not here claim that he was innocent, or that there was any reasonable doubt of his guilt. It is quite possible, perhaps probable, that the first jurors would . have returned a verdict of “ not guilty ” if they had beheld him in the very act of assassination. But it is none the less probable that the other jurors would have condemned him upon no evidence at all, except the fact that he was a Nationalist. Now, mark, there is no question here as to the justice of his doom. He was undoubtedly guilty. But—was this trial by jury ? Let us imagine a parallel case in England. Let us suppose that one of the Jingo stones which broke Mr. Gladstone’s windows had fractured his head, and that the criminal had been captured. Suppose then that two juries containing Conserva¬ tives had disagreed ; what should we have said to the spectacle of a third jury, packed from the ranks of the Liberals, sitting upon their political opponent ? What should we say to a jury STANDPOINT OF VIEW. 9 ■of landlords trying Mr. Henry George for poaching, or a jury of Jesuits trying Mr. Swinburne for blasphemy? It may be urged that it was necessary to pack the juries. Undoubtedly it was. Not one of the Invincibles would have been condemned unless the juries had been packed, though it is difficult to conceive that any one doubted their guilt. In fact, their popularity alone almost proved it. But those men were not tried by their peers. Their trial was in reality an execution; the so-called juries were simply assistant execu¬ tioners. It may be urged that the state of public opinion was bad. This may be; and, either in its denunciations of the unknown assassins as Americans and even as Orangemen, or else in its exaltation of them, when discovered, into heroes, the National party was apparently chargeable with great hypocrisy. However, the denunciations were, perhaps, the only thing that saved the country from martial law at the time, in the violent state of English feeling; so we may incline to believe rather in the sincerity of the sentiment of homage towards these political assassins. But what does all this prove ? That the country is not being governed constitu¬ tionally; that the inhabitants, owing to their discontent, are deprived of the rights which we enjoy; and that we are thus supporting a system of oppression morally, if not entirely, as bad as that of a Bourbon or a Romanoff. Let this once be made clear, let that part of the English nation which holds Liberal principles once be made aware of this, and there can surely be but one result. To them I appeal to cast off that muffling veil of falsehood which gene¬ rations of interested politicians and partisans have wrapped around their eyes, and to take their stand upon those broad and simple truths which have been held by every brave and noble man of modern times, from Martin Luther down to Garibaldi. IO THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. CHAPTER III. IRELAND A NATION. The principal, if not the only, reply urged against the claims of Ireland by her foes, is that that country is not a separate nation but merely a province. Much colour is given to this assertion by the facts that our language is the tongue of nearly every Irishman, that a large proportion of Norman and Saxon blood flows in the veins of Irishmen, and, more than all, that half a million or so of the inhabitants, especially in Ulster and among the genteel classes, would claim to share the common nationhood of Great Britain. Again, Bretagne is pointed to as a province of France, and Anally comparisons are made with Scotland and Wales. But what would a Scotchman say if he were asked whether his country were a province of England ? I think he w r ould say that England was more likely a province of Scotland. As for Wales, the Sunday Closing Bill is, as far as I am aware, about the sole distinction existing politically between Wales and England. I have met with apparently educated people who hardly knew whether Monmouthshire was an English county or a Welsh one'; and it would really make no difference if it did belong to Wales. The Principality is a name. The Welsh, like the Scotch, are perfectly contented with the laws and political conditions under which they live, subject, of course, to their desire for progress in common with English Liberals. Scotland, of course, is less at one with England, but not even in Scotland is there the same evidence of separateness as in Ireland. Ireland is a kingdom governed till recently by a lord- lieutenant and a Parliament. It is now governed by the lord- IRELAND A NATION. ii lieutenant without the Parliament. It has its own courts of jus¬ tice, its own police, its constabulary force'; an independent and separate organization, in fact, whose union with England was never even contemplated till recent times, and which every one knows was carried in the teeth of seven-eighths of the nation. Is Ireland a nation ? This is no question of technicalities nor of constitutional forms. It is a question which can only be answered by the throbbing pulses of Ireland’s own sons; and twelve millions of those beating in unison to-day in every quarter of the globe have but one answer to return—that she is, that she has been from times beyond the first Saxon footstep in Britain, and that she will be, so long as one Irishman or one descendant of an Irishman is left alive upon the face of the earth. Why should Ireland be compared to Bretagne ? What are the grievances of the Bretons; where is the record of their rebellions ? Point out one century, nay, even one half-century, during which no Irishmen have borne arms in a political strife with the English Government, and I will admit Ireland to be a province. But there is no such interval, no, not since the year 1170. Ireland has never dropped the flag of nationality from her hands; the British standard has never supplanted that flag in the hearts of its inhabitants. But the most utterly absurd argument remains to be noticed. A million, nay, less, of the inhabitants claim to partake of a British as well as an Irish nationhood. What! Inhabitants ? Is, then, the voice of the inhabitants to be listened to ? I require no more. Let four millions answer one million. Let the voice of Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and half Ulster drown the utterance of the other half of Ulster. The majority is four to one, a majority which in this country would be suffi¬ cient to tear up the Constitution by the roots, to cede the whole British empire to France, to carry any proposition, however stringent or preposterous. But I have given the wrong figures. I should have said seven to one. In 1845 there were eight million people in Ireland, of whom about one and a quarter or one and a half were Protestant. At the present time there are little over five millions, of whom nearly one and a quarter still are Protestant. Emigration sweeps away the Catholic element, and it would be absurd to deny that that is mainly National, while three- quarters of the Protestants are probably Loyalist, more or less. (I call them Loyalists, because that is the name which they 12 THE . TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. assume, but I mean the people who assaulted the police at Belfast and Dromore.) This is one way of dealing with Irish opinion. Send it away. Suppose when the Conservatives were in power they had devised a scheme for emigrating half the Liberal party, how should we have liked it? And how would the half that were left like to be told that they were no longer entitled to consideration on account of their reduced numbers? Yet this is how Ireland has practically been dealt with. Of course I shall be told that this depopulation was due to natural causes. But how came nature to favour the Protestant, or rather the Loyalist, or better still the tyrannous, faction to such a marvellous extent ? I can fancy the indig¬ nation that we should feel if we learnt that our co-religionists were disappearing in droves from Canada beneath a Catholic government, or from any English town beneath a Catholic corporation. But of what use has been all this transportation ? It has merely divided the Irish nation, not diminished it. And in the eyes of every just man, the exile of 1850, or i860, or 1870 has as much right to speak for the nationality of the land he was forced from, but which he still loves and to which he still hopes to return, and in which his kindred still dwell, as any English gentleman who owns ten thousand acres in the island which he never visits, or any Scotch merchant in the Scoto- Irish town of Belfast. That there is English blood in Irish veins is an undoubted fact, and the more of such blood flows in them the more stubborn, as a rule, is the resistance to oppression. Glance at the names of the Nationalist members of Parliament. Parnell, Sexton, Gray, Redmond, Harrington, Dawson, Biggar, Small, Henry, Nelson, Metge, Commins, Power,—there is not a Celtic syllable in all these. And what is more, the Ulster Loyalists are less amenable to English rule than the Nationalists themselves. These people are willing enough to lay the yoke on others, but they rear the moment it is imposed on their own shoulders. They do not mind being overseers of slaves, but, when reminded of their own slavery, they are the first to resist. But we shall discuss this in a subsequent chapter; it is sufficient here to establish the fact that the majority of the nation, whatever be their descent, are and claim to be Irishmen. Even if Ireland were a province, that would not justify the present mode of treating it. The American colonies revolted for a feather’s weight in comparison with Irish grievances. IRELAND A NATION. 13 But so long as superficial politicians are allowed to call Ireland a province, they can talk of establishing order and causing the laws to be respected, and they can promise reforms and equal rights to the inhabitants of both countries. Equal rights, for¬ sooth, when the first of all rights, that of existence itself, is denied to a nationality ! But the Irish do not want equal rights in that way. Sooner would they be oppressed by their countrymen than be con¬ ciliated by foreigners—or, rather, be promised conciliation ; for real conciliation, real equal rights, they never have had, and, so far as I can see, never will have, while Dublin Castle stands by the Liffey. Is not nationhood itself a priceless blessing ? Will not a man leave his wife, and his children, and his friends, and his trade, and his reputation, yea, all that he hath, for the sake of his country ? Will he not, for her sake, lay down his life on the scaffold and submit to the ignominious fate of a felon? And when he does this for Poland or Russia, for Rome or for England, do we not call him hero and martyr, and honour him above all men ? But when he does it for Ireland— ah ! then let us send over our hangman, and heap curses upon his memory. No ; the Irish nation is as distinct as the Irish island. The name of Ireland was written in the book of nations by the Hand that guided the first wandering Celt to the western shore, and it cannot be erased from that book by all the ministers who ever sat on the Treasury Bench. 14 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND . CHAPTER IV. CASTLE GOVERNMENT. What is the maxim of the English Government? To make the people contented. What is the maxim of the Irish Government? To keep the people down. In the preceding chapter I have shown that the Irish people would be dis¬ satisfied with the rule of an archangel, if he were an English archangel. And rightly so. Who could respect a nation that flourished beneath a foreign rule ? But it now remains to exhibit the fact that Ireland’s rulers, if they be archangels, certainly are not of the kind that comes from above. And it may be necessary here to repeat that the Irish Government is not founded on the popular suffrage—no, not even nominally so. For if Ireland really partook of the full privileges of England, we should see at least two of her representatives in the Cabinet. The Secretary for Ireland would at least be Irish by birth. Whereas we know that no native of that country sits at our council board, and that the present Lord-Lieutenant, Chief Secretary, and Under Secre¬ tary, not to mention lesser officials, are all Britons. Now, this is not an Irish grievance; far from it. The Irish know well enough that if members of theirs were in the Cabinet, or in the Irish Government, they would be selected exclusively from the ranks of the anti-National Loyalists. On the whole, an Englishman is probably preferable to an Ulsterman, as he has less bigotry and rancour. Yet these facts clearly establish the statement so often denied, that the Castle is not a place in which Irishmen can take the same pride that we do in Downing Street; nor can they look upon its executive with the same CASTLE GOVERNMENT. 15 feelings of affectionate confidence with which we regard, for instance, the urbane occupant of the Home Office. No government can exist in any country that is not based upon one of two things,* conquest and the good will of the governed. The Czar’s rule is based upon the first of these, our own upon the second. Which of these is it that supports the Irish Government ? Ask of the soldiers that garrison the cities .and towns of Ireland. Ask of the enormous constabulary and police force. Ask of any Irishman, no matter of what party, and the answer will be—conquest. True, our Government merits the good will of one-fifth of the nation, and even receives it so long as the executive is careful not to offend that section by a rash interference with their hereditary privileges. But we annexed the real body of the Irish nation, and though we have been liberating them by inches ever since, they steadfastly refuse to acquiesce cordially in our presence as rulers. There is only one alternative. We must either rule them by force or let them go free. And while we continue to rule them we must make them contented by punishing discontent. As some minister so beautifully puts it, we must endeavour to reconcile them to our Government, while putting down crime with a firm hand. It is a noble task, and one in which we have glorious encouragements to persevere, from the example of the Czar in Russia, the Austrians in Italy, and other enlightened govern¬ ments elsewhere. I am not attacking the English ministers at home. Mr. Gladstone’s bust is before me as I write, and I do not for one moment credit him with the desire to perpetuate the present state of things. But the first duty of an English minister is to his own country, and it is that country which must make its voice heard in this matter before anything can be effected. The remarkable part of the situation is, that the conciliation always comes from Downing Street, and the coercion from Dublin Castle. Mr. Gladstone gave the Land Act to Ireland, but Mr. Forster gave the Coercion Act. In the same way the English nation is not nearly so hostile to Ireland as are the Orangemen of Ulster. If the population of England were polled on the question to-morrow, there would probably be a vast portion, if not an actual majority, in favour of a decent, respectable Home Rule. But the decision is not put to them. Their members in Parliament decide beforehand, those members are led by their ministers, and those ministers rely on the reports from Dublin. 16 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. What is this Castle, it may be asked ? Were I to use a parable, I should describe it as a fortress like Gibraltar in Spain, or a house whose windows were filled with stained orange glass. I will not call it a nest of vipers or any such nonsense. It is simply the seat of Government; it contains all the principal offices, more particularly those of an executive or administrative character; and its inmates are almost exclusively composed of men loyal to—the Union. I say almost, because some of the drudgery of the departments is no doubt performed by persons of unsound views ; indeed, we have it on record that a junior clerk was dismissed by Mr. Forster for a seditious speech in a debating society. He is now editor of a country paper, and probably the sentiments disseminated by it are not highly favourable to the Castle. This establishment contains a few safe Catholics, even in the highest offices, nominees and relations of Catholic noblemen and landlords, or perhaps proteges of the Whig Catholic archbishop. To rise to such posts, however, a man must have one or other qualification— orthodoxy in religion and politics, or, if unorthodox in the first, double zeal for the British connection, involving as it does the supremacy of the Loyalist Protestants. As in the Romish Church only he who has shown himself loyal to its traditions can expect a cardinalate or the tiara, so in the Castle only the approved adherents of the preceding office-holders can hope for promotion to their posts. So that the truly Liberal Protestant has infinitely less chance of admission than the politically unscrupulous Catholic into this mysterious building, where Protestant ascendency lurks in its inmost recesses, while upon its topmost turret the genius of Toryism folds its wings. Such is the head-quarters of that rule which, under the name of English, oppresses what has been called the Sister Isle. We must remember that Ireland is not like England. It is a small country as regards inhabitants, and everybody in Ireland knows nearly everybody else. At least, everybody who is anybody. In other words, there is more gossip and more personality in public life. And of course more petty intriguing and private influence. Irish public life does not partake of the same spotless purity as English; the uncontaminated atmo¬ sphere of Westminster, with its holy integrity and almost Pharisaical morality, does not pervade the structure by the Liffey. For instance, at most periods during the past century there have been what are here called “ hanging judges,” of whom it has been noticed that their circuits coincide, with CASTLE GOVERNMENT. 17 surprising regularity, with the districts most obnoxious to—the Castle. The real point on which the English public is in the dark, is the reciprocal action of the Castle and a Liberal Chief Secretary or Lord-Lieutenant on each other. Now, in the first place, it may be pointed out that the Chief Secretary’s duties lie mainly in the House of Commons. It is for the Castle to rule, and for him to defend its measures to our representatives. In the same way the Lord-Lieutenant has functions of his own to perform, apart from the government of the country. He has to act as her Majesty’s representative. He holds levees and drawing-rooms, gives dinners, perambulates the country, confers knighthoods, and generally makes himself agreeable. He may be described as the ornamental figure-head, while the Chief Secretary is the supercargo. But the permanent Under Secretaries do the real work. They are the masters. They teach the other personages, and it is they who, to a large ex¬ tent, represent the Castle. The best simile is that of an ocean-steamer coming up the Mersey. The English high official represents the captain from some other port, but it is the Irishman, the native Loyalist, the peer’s nephew, or what¬ ever he be, who acts the part of pilot, and who really gives the directions which the gilt-uniformed captain shouts from his bridge in all the confidence of trustful ignorance. The surest proof that this government is not directed by its nominal heads, is furnished by the fact that its policy and methods are precisely the same under Tory and Liberal administrations. I have to say this much in order to account for the present tyrannical conduct of the Government here, without accusing Earl Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan of a perversion of principles which would shock the candid public mind. It is difficult to believe that any English Liberal could consent to be responsible for a gross system of jury-packing, unless he had been worked upon by some of that sophistry so plentiful over here—that sophistry which I almost despair of displaying in its real cha¬ racter to the reader who has never visited this blighted land; that sophistry which persuades its victim that injustice in England is justice here, that liberalism there is sedition here, * that patriotism there is treason here; that, in short, everything which a student of Carlyle, Mill, and Macaulay has been taught to reverence is no longer of account when he has crossed St. George’s Channel; that sophistry which assumes as its starting- * point that England must be right and Ireland wrong, and from c iS THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. those monstrous premises deduces a justification for every tyranny, every mean and paltry act which bigotry can invent or servility execute. Shall I give some instances of the acts to which I refer? It is needless; it would be but extracting from newspaper reports accounts which would be stale reading. The best illustration of the working of such a system is to be found in its effects. A man, who in England would probably rank as a moderate Liberal, has assured me that, so thorough is his disgust with the whole procedure of Government here, he would conceal a common murderer from the officers of “ justice,” should such a one seek refuge in his house. And if that is the feeling of educated men, what must it not be among the poor ? What point in that beautiful structure, the British Constitution, shall I exhibit in its working here ? Right of Public Meeting ? Who is there that does not know that public meetings have been suppressed in every corner of Ireland ? But this was to prevent outrage, it may be said. If this be so, why are not the speakers who incite to outrage fairly tried, and not choked amid their own constituents by the orders of their political opponents ? It is not a fair contest. Mr. Trevelyan can imprison, but Mr. Healy can only revile. What schoolboy would argue with the schoolmaster who repaid his words with blows? Mr. Biggar is hunted from house to house and from room to room by the police nominally under the control of Mr. Trevelyan, and then the latter gentleman complains to his Scotch audience of the “ extraordinary and unnecessary asperity of language” to which he is subjected. He would not have uttered such a complaint on this side of the water; for we know that—however useless, and therefore unnecessary—such language, far from being extraordinary, is the most natural utterance of rough determination confronted with hopeless obstacles, of liberty writhing in the grasp of officialism, of patriotism chained by domestic bigotry to the prison rock of foreign rule. ( 19 ) CHAPTER V. • REBELLION. Hi * I Socrates, when he refused to execute the unjust command of the Thirty Tyrants; David, when he sought refuge in arms from Saul’s power; Brutus, when he drove Tarquin from Rome; Boadicea, when she laid Verulam in ashes; Godwin, when he resisted Norman ascendency; Wallace, when he rose against Edward the First, Lord of Scotland; William the Silent, in his war with Philip the Second; Oliver Cromwell, and the defenders of Londonderry;—all these were rebels, and although some were more successful than others, not one of them has been by this age branded with infamy, or even denied praise. If we examine into the circumstances of all these, what single feature is visible in each case ? Resistance to oppression, the determination to disobey unjust rulers, whether the injustice arose from a king’s wickedness, from foreign domi¬ nation, or undue predominance of one faction in a state. The latter is especially remarkable; and in the history of Saxon Godwin, if anywhere, shall we find a parallel to the motives of those who have led Irish rebellion during the present century. To any impartial foreigner, viewing this matter in the light of modern European history, it would appear a sufficient con¬ demnation of the present rule in Ireland that it was English; for no nation is likely to thrive under a rule in which it has no share. A government not based upon the people’s will is • rotten at its foundation, and can be strong only in proportion to the amount of external support which it receives. If, there¬ fore, the mere fact of the present government in Ireland not being lodged in the hands of the inhabitants be a sufficient * reason for rebellion, how much more is that justified by the 20 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. cruel injustice which pervades the government? I have, I trust,, dispelled the idea that this country is being governed according to Liberal principles ; but if it were so governed, its inhabitants might yet be excused for repudiating English supremacy. In short, her distinct nationality gives her one title to rebel; her oppression gives her another, equally strong. Either is suffi¬ cient ; but, with both combined, a fair reasoner is bound to confess that, if this country can be reproached with anything, it is with the fact that her rebellions have not been more frequent and more prolonged. For my part, I could hardly respect a people which sub¬ mitted to injustice without a murmur. The unresisting victim may excite pity, and a law-abiding people be deserving of esteem; but it was not by non-resistance that any liberties were ever won in the past, and obedience to bad laws is a virtue of at least a questionable sort. Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, the First Reform Bill and the Repeal of the Corn Laws, none of these measures were obtained without resistance, which amounted to open or potential rebellion. In the same way with the other island—rebellion won the Independence of 1782; and to rebellion, more or less open, were due all the great measures of the present century, from Emancipation down to the Land Act. Lest the reader take alarm from this frequent use of the word rebellion, I may state that the present “ agitation ” in Ireland is not directed against the Sovereign, but against the Government. It is no more treason than the agitation against the Beaconsfield administration was treason ; the sole difference between the two cases being that we strove for a change of ministers, and the Irish are striving for a change in the method of appointing ministers. This is the Constitutional law of the case; otherwise we might be compelled to admit that our neighbours, in endeavouring to overthrow Protestant ascend¬ ency, are acting on much the same principle as our forefathers in dethroning a king for the sake of Catholic ascendency. But in merely seeking to repeal an Act of Parliament, the Irish Home Rulers are no worse than were Messrs. Cobden and Bright in the days of the Anti-Corn Law League. The national aspirations of these men cease to appear a crime when we reflect that they are only seeking for what should never have been taken from them. Scotland has demanded a Scotch department; and there can be no question that if Scotland suffered as Ireland suffers, Scotland would be more rebellious REBELLION. 21 than Ireland is. History proves this. When Episcopacy was established in the north, an archbishop was assassinated, and that, at least, was never done here. And the difference between two forms of Protestantism cannot compare with that between itself and Catholicism. In the same way, Wales has obtained, with little trouble, a boon, namely, a national univer¬ sity, for which Ireland strove for decades in vain. So it is throughout. But were it not so—were Scotchmen and Welsh¬ men ground down and insulted—we should hear of discontent dn the loyal Principality, and of rebellion beyond the Tweed. So far are the people of Ireland in general from aiming at independence of the Crown, that a great number of them even cherish quite warm feelings of loyalty towards it; they place an absurd weight on the continued boycotting of the country by its Sovereign, and are foolishly anxious for the smiles of royalty. Of course there are many whose loyalty has been soured, and who are disposed to regard the monarch in the light of a British rather than an Irish Queen. But I honestly believe these to be quite in a minority, and indeed till lately they had no influence in the country. What republicanism there is, is distinctly traceable to the influence of those whom we sent to America in our coffin-ships, to learn in that country that all men have equal rights to the blessings of freedom, and to learn also that Great Britain may have to be resisted when she seeks to establish abroad that tyranny which she has rejected at home. But so loyal are the mass of the poor people, that I have been assured by strong Nationalists that the greatest blow that could be struck at the cause would be to send a royal prince over here as Lord-Lieutenant; as his presence, by creating a court, bringing money into the country, and other¬ wise gratifying the national feelings and removing grievances, would deprive Home Rule of half its supporters. In fact, I should not write this paragraph did I think that there was any likelihood of the hint it contains being availed of. Having established the necessity for rebellion in Ireland, I shall now be confronted with the question, Why are not the Irish brave enough to rise and free themselves, like the Dutch and the Scotch and the Italians ? Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not, who would be free themselves must strike the blow ! Such a reproach, it is true, comes with particularly ill grace from the very people who are keeping Ireland down, but it never¬ theless deserves consideration. Of course, it is easy to settle it off-hand by saying that the Celtic race has inferior staying 22 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRE LA ND. powers ; but that is not enough. Every country labours under circumstances peculiar to itself. In one century the Moors, drove the Spaniards almost out of Spain, and seven hundred years later the last Moors were in their turn overcome. Now, the Spaniards took far longer to reconquer their own country than the Moors had taken to wrest the land from its previous, inhabitants. Which, then, of these two races was the superior ? But I shall say no more on this subject. I am not writing an apology for Ireland, nor a panegyric on a nation which it is naturally difficult for me to properly appreciate where its character differs from that of my own. This much may be said, however, that if a big boy at a school were to seize and beat a smaller one, it would scarcely be a fair retort to the latter’s, complaints to say, “ Hereditary little boy, know’st thou not, who would be free themselves must strike the blow ! ” But no sooner have we evaded this Scylla of contempt,, than we come to a Charybdis of condemnation. The very people who call for a general uprising, cry out in the loudest language against the crimes perpetrated by individual bonds¬ men. These crimes, whatever may be their effect in procuring, valuable political concessions, must be deplored, and as a matter of fact are condemned by nearly every Nationalist of standing. But with the deluded perpetrators it is impossible to feel the same wrath as is excited by such a murder as that in which a doctor poisons his young relative for money. What had these men to gain by their deeds? Neither fame, nor wealth, nor personal advantage of any kind. What had they to lose ? Their peace of mind, their liberty, and, as it often turned out, their life. I am not trying to defend them, or even to excuse their conduct; but I ask any man who reads these words to pause, and, if he has been a supporter of Coercion and an opponent of Home Rule, to ask himself whether he is entitled to cast the stone at Joseph Brady ! You would have resisted a claim to Home Rule by force. You passed your Union by force, and you have upheld it by force ever since. Let any Irishman be sufficiently active in his country’s cause, and you will resist him by force; you will put him into prison or hang him. You will order your police and your soldiery to charge an unarmed mob; you will drive men into the workhouse and the grave by the pinch of hunger. All this you have done and are doing; and dare you, when the martyrs of Irish liberty impeach you at the bar of eternal justice—dare you reply, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” REBELLION. 23 Crimes ! The crimes of Ireland are trifling in comparison with the crimes of England. From the wholesale slaughters of Elizabeth’s time, from the massacres by Cromwell, from the slain of William III., from all the deaths of the deadly century of the penal code, from the inhuman persecutions of 1798, and finally from the gigantic national hecatomb of the Famine year, ascends a reek of blood that causes our country’s very name to drip with gore, that splashes the pages of the British historian, and compels the indignant countryman of the evil¬ doers to own, that if Ireland has slain her thousands, England has slain her ten thousands. 24 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND . CHAPTER VI. FAITH AND FATHERLAND. It is always a peculiar misfortune when a question of religion becomes mingled with one of politics or of nationality. Such a conjuncture operates by way of embittering differences of opinion, and rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for any true understanding to exist between opposing parties. The particular quality of a religious contest is that it inspires each side with the belief that they are acting under a sacred direc¬ tion, which sanctifies actions such as they would otherwise be ashamed or afraid to commit. It may be laid down as a maxim that any prejudice is easier to remove than one based on religion. Moreover, the less enlightened, the less educated a people may be, the stronger will be its prejudices of this kind. We have seen the Hindoos perish rather than receive food from the hands of a Christian; we have seen the faith of the Koran authorizing or justifying incredible cruelties on the infidel populations of the East; and in the same way in Ireland we have the spectacle of a population against which nearly every enormity has been committed for the sake of its creed being different from the persecutor’s. Unfortunately the result of persecuting people on the one hand for their patriotism, and on the other for their religion, has been to identify these two feelings in the breasts of millions of Irishmen. The words which head this chapter are to be seen inscribed upon banners and painted upon walls ; in fact, they furnish the whole morality of a considerable section of the nation. So long as this motto continues to be flaunted in the face of England and of Protestant Ireland, it is no wonder that the difficulties of a union, of a community of sentiment FAITH AND FATHERLAND. 25 with the first, or a reconciliation with the second, are doubled. That some such sentiment should have grown up in the past is but natural, but the men of the present day are, or ought to be, more intelligent, and it is high time that the odious policy of identifying one creed with liberty and another with tyranny should be abandoned. It is unfair to expect the prejudiced Protestant to attend meetings where a Catholic priest is to harangue and direct his flock; it is of little use to sew an Orange fringe to a green banner that displays the words, “ Faith and Fatherland.” Were there any real support to be derived from the addition of Roman Catholicism to the national programme, there might be some excuse for it. If it could be shown that Rome was the friend of Ireland, it might be forgiven by the Protestant server of the same country. Happily for the cause of freedom, this is not the case. It is my purpose to briefly explain what are the real views of the Vatican as regards this country, in order, first, that Englishmen may not fear that they are pro¬ pitiating Papacy by conceding Home Rule, and second, that Irishmen may perceive the folly of invoking a Conservative Church in the midst of their democratic struggle. The Vatican has never relaxed its watch upon England, nor has it ever given up the hope of inducing our country to re-enter the fold which we left in the sixteenth century. Unable from its very nature to appreciate the peculiar traits of the English character, the Italian Church has sought by various arts to win over the aristocratic element in the nation rather than the democracy; blind to the fact that the aristocracy have everything to lose, and the democracy nothing, by a change from one political Church to another. Under these circumstances it is evident that the policy of the Church has naturally been to make itself rather fashionable than popular; and it has also sought to secure a hold on the nation, less by its own merits than by its services as a political body. The way these services have been rendered, the way in which Rome has sought to establish a claim on English gratitude, has been by using its influence over the Irish Catho¬ lics in the interest of Protestant England. This is no new departure on the part of the Vatican. Rome has never seen anything wrong in inflicting secular injuries on her own sons for the sake of propagating the faith. We read that the earlier Popes were known to sell their own vassals to the Saracens; and what motive could they have 26 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. had in this, except the chance of spreading Christianity among the Mussulmans? If, therefore, the English gentry can be gratified by the keeping down of the Irish people, it is but natural for the Pope, in his political capacity, to sacrifice the interests of the small country, in the hope of making way in the favour of the large one. He is sure of Ireland : so firmly rooted are the Celtic millions of that isle in their faith, that he feels no fear of anything causing them to forsake him. If the choice lay between England and Ireland to-morrow, of course he would choose the former country and let the latter one go, for the simple reason that the wealth of England would be of greater service to the Church. But we must remember that Catholicism is making slow headway in our country, and therefore the Pope cannot afford to altogether abandon Ireland on the mere hope of receiving the solid gratitude of England. It will be seen by this that it is of the utmost importance to Rome that Ireland should not be on good terms with Eng¬ land ; for if she were, the good offices of the Pope would no longer be esteemed by the English. Home Rule, therefore, is what Rome most dreads. In any event it would be fatal to her policy. If Catholicism once came to the front, the spec¬ tacle of a Catholic nation in Ireland would be only too likely to act as a deterrent to our own country. The feeling which makes the English Catholic ashamed of his Irish brother would operate with double force on the Protestant; even as now we see the presence of Irish Catholics in our cities tending, by the operation of mutual antipathies among unthinking men, to disgust English workmen at once with Ireland and with Catholicism. Moreover, the Pope’s occupation would be gone. He would be no longer able to point to his services in keeping a rebellious people beneath the yoke of law and order; and his hold on England would thus be sensibly weakened. At the same time, it would never do for the Irish to become reconciled to their subjection. This would be even worse, for then the same result in regard to his influence would follow without Ireland having gained anything; and it would be absurd to deny that, apart from the question of England, the Roman Pontiff is anxious for Ireland’s advancement. The Vatican has, therefore, a double task to perform. It has to keep Ireland sufficiently rebellious to need suppression, and sufficiently suppressed to prevent rebellion outrunning re¬ straint ; like the boot-mender who repairs a boot to just such an extent as will render his services again necessary in a short FAITH AND FATHERLAND. 27 time. (A not wholly dissimilar policy is being pursued by the same Church in Germany.) When all is quiet across the water, therefore, secret instructions are issued to the clergy to relax their vigilance for a time, to cease denouncing the Fenians and to demonstrate their friendship to the popular cause. This, of course, soon results in an agitation; leaders come to the front, there is a great stir, a little bloodshed; the English Government bestows some boon or other, and then the Vati¬ can, appealed to by its English adherents, comes forward with a Circular or a cardinal emissary, and denounces sedition, forbids the clergy to talk patriotism, and excommunicates the Fenians; and thus receives the alternate credit of sympathy with Ireland and usefulness to England. Nor is this all. For the Irish clergy to turn over thus in a body each time might excite suspicion, so provision is care¬ fully made for an English archbishop and an Irish archbishop, a Whig and a Nationalist, and of course the bishops and clergy in the provinces are similarly divided. Thus, as in those in¬ genious barometers of our infancy, a man came out to show wet weather, and a woman to indicate that it was fine, so we may expect agitation when the patriotic archbishop comes to the front, and infer a subsidence of the political storm from the reappearance of the law-and-order archbishop. Meanwhile Rome is enabled to pose as the friend of both parties, and to receive support of various kinds from each. Of course there may be, there very probably are, numbers of Irish priests who are thoroughly patriotic at heart; for these I have too much respect to wish to say aught that would hurt them. But unfortunately their good qualities are of little use to their country while their tongues can be loosed and locked at a sign from Rome. To the Vatican they are invaluable, as their very genuineness reflects credit on the Church to which they belong. And the Pope, assured as he is of Irish fidelity,, is yet unwilling to give a rude shock to it, by appearing too openly as the adversary of Ireland. Hence resort is had to- the false information plan. Some devoted son of the Church is found who is willing to incur the odium of treachery to his native land, and he proceeds to Rome and poses in public as the supplier of false information to the Pontiff. This serves a double purpose. The Vatican is enabled to take credit with other Powers for having an emissary from Great Britain, and, what is more important, its friends in Ireland are enabled, when some anti-popular counterblast issues from Rome, to 28 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. attribute the whole, not to real hostility, but to the deceitful representations of the aforesaid traitor. The Pope’s popularity is thus undiminished, and the whole odium of his policy is transferred by the faithful Catholic Nationalists to the shoulders of the puppet, who can be then personally repudiated without the policy being changed. So much for Faith and Fatherland. However, Mr. Parnell is far from being the only non-Catholic in the ranks of the Parliamentary party, and I have little doubt that when a Dublin Parliament meets there will be found a sturdy party who will in no way submit to the domination of any clerical power. This much is certain, that it is not natural for the Church of Rome to sympathize with any movement of a demo¬ cratic kind. All over Europe at the present day that Church is engaged alongside of despotism in thwarting the march of progress and opposing the children of liberty. It has assumed the functions of a vast spiritual police to those monarchical governments which may be driven to rely upon its aid. Its hold on France was recently overthrown, but it is still powerful in Spain. In Austria it is peculiarly strong. In Germany it has advanced recently by the arts of peace, having failed of success in the Napoleonic appeal to arms in 1870. Even in Italy, where it had kept freedom underfoot so long, it is not yet powerless, although many Italians believe that it is only the influence of the British Government which still keeps the Pope at the Vatican. In short, Romanism and Liberalism stand, as they have ever stood, opposed to each other in every part of the globe to which both have penetrated. Let Ireland choose between. Assured am I, that the day is not far distant when it will be found that the best and truest lovers of the fatherland are not the most obedient followers of the faith. CHAPTER VII. PEOPLE AND PARTIES. Two broad lines, which cross each other diagonally, may be drawn between the sections of the Irish population—a line of loyalty and a line of religion. This may be illustrated by the accompanying diagram. Here the space enclosed by A, B, C may represent the Catholics, and A, B, F the Protestants; while D, E, C may stand for the rebels, and D, E, F for the Loyalists. The dotted space thus shows Protestant Nationalists, and the lined space Loyal Catholics. No pretence is made here to statistical exactness, far less to geographical truth, but a clearer idea may perhaps thus be obtained of the general situation. I shall devote the next chapter to that section of which the Orange body is the nucleus, and proceed now to describe the parties who are more or less favourable to Home Rule. To begin at the extreme, there is a body of men out of whom come the perpetrators of the different political deeds of desperation which have employed our police so actively of late. These are principally inspired or recruited from America, where the Irish exiles have mixed more or less with those from Poland, from Paris, and from other oppressed countries. In their own country these men are rather tolerated than sympathized with even by the firmest Nationalists; they receive pity rather than esteem. Morally they have no influence, and in any normal condition of affairs they would be absolutely effaced. It is only wanton outrages on the part of the police, and persistent suppression of open agitation, that gives these 30 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRE LA HE. people any excuse for their operations. Here, however, as elsewhere, the guiding powers, spiritual or secular, find it easier to loose than to bind. A very different spirit is at the basis of the Fenian organiza¬ tion. This represents to Ireland what the Garibaldian party did to Italy. Its aims are the establishment of a republic, and primarily the forcible rejection of the English yoke. Like the preceding, this party derives much of its strength from the maladministration of Irish affairs, and its ranks are swelled mainly by those who have been fined, imprisoned, or otherwise injured for a more open and peaceful display of patriotism. Wanton outrages, such as the placing of dynamite on railways, do not properly come within the scope of this organization. It has loftier aims, and it looks forward to the time when a severe course of coercion shall goad the people into a real insurrec¬ tion. Then Fenianism will rear its head like a hidden serpent from beneath the grass, organized bodies of men will appear simultaneously all over Ireland, captains and lieutenants will reveal themselves, and thousands will flock back from America to take part in the national struggle. Such is the grand but hopeless dream of the Fenian—hopeless because he forgets that modern battles are decided, not by courage, but by weight of gun-metal; hopeless, also, because neither money nor arms can be forthcoming at the proper time, because a large section of his own countrymen are against him to the death ; and hope¬ less, finally, because Europe has no support to offer him, and he is controlled and shackled by the policy of Rome. Such as it is, however, there are many points about this body which may command our respect. It does not profess the same absurd animosity against the Saxon, as such, which too often disgusts the most fair-minded Englishmen when they try to approach the Irish question from the Irish standpoint. It declares its hatred of the English government as existing in Ireland; and perhaps its only illogical position is that it does not take account of the Loyalist million whom England can hardly abandon to the fate of a civil war, and who are yet not likely to submit off-hand to a Celtic Republic. It has always been an object of aversion to the Vatican, on account of the secrecy of its organization. At the same time, it is sometimes useful to the designs of the Roman Church, and probably a large majority of its adherents are staunch Catholics. Absolution is denied, nominally, to a Fenian, but rumours have reached my ears that this rule has been relaxed on proper occasions. PEOPLE AND PARTIES. 3i The next party to receive consideration may be called the Practical Party. It is this which, under its present masterly leadership, has obtained the complete predominance in Ireland. Indeed, its adherents number about one-half of the whole nation, including the small farmers, the labourers, most of the Catholic inhabitants of towns, and, in short, all those men who are Irish first and everything else afterwards. At the present time its voting power is swelled by the extremists on one hand, and the Catholics-first-and-Irishmen-after on the other. Its members do not believe in armed force as a probable remedy for the present state of things, but anything in the way of boycotting, National Exhibitions, and similar ultra-Irish movements, receives their support. They are the men who supported O’Connell, and who have created Parnellism. It is to be regretted for some reasons that in their ranks is to be found a sentiment of unreasoning hatred towards Englishmen and things English. I say unreasoning, but not unnatural, because it repays the evil deeds of a few on a whole nation and confounds men of large, liberal views, who are led astray by their (the Irishmen’s) own countrymen in the Castle, with those Conservatives who have never professed to regard Ireland as anything but a con¬ quered country, or its inhabitants as otherwise than an in¬ ferior race. England as a whole can fairly be charged with neglect of Ireland; but it should be remembered that it is but of late years that the democracy have had any share in the government, and at the present moment, out of the 6,000,000 * people engaged in industrial occupations in the country, but two have obtained a place among the 489 members of the House of Commons. And although at the present moment another army of toilers is being summoned by the clarion of Freedom to be enrolled beneath the banner of Progress, yet their hands will take time to get accustomed to the weapon they are re¬ ceiving, and not at once can^they be expected to achieve their own emancipation, far less that of a nation which they do not understand, and from whose mouthpieces they have been accustomed most frequently to receive silly abuse. Another large portion of the inhabitants of Ireland are the political Catholics. These may be said to represent the Irish policy of the Pontiff, and their public exponents range in view from the Conservativism of the landlord, and the scarce-dis¬ tinguishable Whiggism of the “ Castle Cawtholic,” down to the priest’s Fenians, who are Fenians simply because they enjoy the excitement of belonging to a society which is out- 32 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. lawed, but who have no thought of “moving” without per¬ mission from Rome. Probably if Orangeism were firmly (and gently) suppressed and its influence destroyed, most of these people might submit to English rule. But our presence in Ireland is simply a pedestal for the glorification of that monster imported by James I. into Ulster; and if our Government receives the open service and support of so many of the Pa- pishes themselves, it is because they regard us in the light of gratuitous rent-collectors and paymasters to their offices. That is to say, that the people who profit by us, who were emancipated, and who are bitten with that Anglomania which so often desecrates the streets of pretty Paris, furnish what I hope I shall wound no one’s ears by naming the Pope’s Bri¬ gade. The Protestant Nationalists remain to be mentioned. Though few in number, they have ever been conspicuous by their talents and devotion to their country. And naturally so. They have no other interest, no other guidance, except the plain light of duty. O’Connell, in his most patriotic days, was filled with that sentiment which found its fitting symbolization in the enshrining of his heart in Rome, and it is still a matter of dispute among Irishmen that he did not ruin his country by his action with respect to Young Ireland. Moreover, Catholics themselves are found to say that a Protestant is in some re¬ spects better fitted for a leader, as his religion does not forbid him to plan rebellion, and the Catholics would rather that that guilt should be borne by him ! So that although Protes¬ tantism in its political form is the curse of this country, yet some of her best heroes have been recruited from the hostile ranks, as the names of Wolfe Tone, Emmet, Grattan, Mitchell, O’Brien, Butt, and others now alive will attest. But of all the parties described above, comprising nearly four millions of the actual inhabitants (besides the perhaps million more who would flock back to their native land), there is not one who would not accept Home Rule, there is hardly one who does not wish it, and there are but few, after all, who do not make it their hope, their ambition, and their passionate desire. I have not entered into details, for there are hardly three Irishmen who hold just the same views on these subjects. All these parties melt and merge in one another. And, on the other hand, there are the farmers with their own grievances, the tradesmen with theirs, and the labourers with theirs. But all alike look forward to a Parliament of their own, to redress PEOPLE AND PAP TIES. n 'y them and to mete out equal justice along the land. We know by hard experience that a Parliament is not a perfect thing and that it cannot do all. But, if that be so, what must it be to have no Parliament? With all its faults, would we let our Parliament be taken away from us without shedding our blood in its defence? Then, by that hallowed feeling, are we not bound as men to restore to our sister island that inestimable privilege, for the absence of which a despotic millennium could not compensate—self-government ? r> 34 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. CHAPTER VIII, THE ORANGE SOCIETY. Extensive researches into history are not required to enable one to understand the present state of affairs in Ireland. The facts before us are so broad and so simple in their nature that they account for everything, and if the history of Ireland down to 1870 were wiped out from the memory of man, it would still be easy to decide the present questions on their own merits. I shall not, therefore, give any account of the rise, a century ago, of Orangeism. As at present constituted the society has two objects, with the first of which every true Englishman must sympathize, but the second of which deserves the severest possible condemnation. The first is the protection of Protes¬ tants and the maintenance of civil and religious liberty; the second is the persecution of Catholics and the withholding from them of any liberty, either civil or religious. Orangeism is a secret society, as much so in many respects as Freemasonry; and as the Orangemen profess to be Protes¬ tant first, British next, and Constitutional next, it may be well to protest at the outset that secrecy, more than anything else, is repugnant to the genius of Protestantism, to the British character, and to the spirit of the Constitution. But the Protestantism of an Orange Lodge is not the Protestantism of our or any other free country. It is not a religion, but a political programme. Its principles have as much resemblance to those of the New Testament, as the Spiritual Peers have to the Galilean Carpenter. Its principles are taken from the Spartan laws respecting the helots; its Christianity resembles that of those Spanish missionaries who endeavoured to convert the Peruvians at the sword’s point. Or, to be yet more exact, THE ORANGE SOCIETY. 35 it regards the Catholic population in much the same light as that in which the Moriscoes of Granada were regarded by Catholic Spain; with this difference, that in Spain the vast majority were not Moriscoes, whereas in Ireland the vast majority are Catholics. It has ever formed the subject of debate among the wisest and best of mankind, whether the state is justified in exacting a certain amount of conformity among its citizens; in other words, how far the great mass of the people are justified in restraining differences of opinion on the part of a few. For a consistent Liberal there is but one answer to such a question— that there can be no justification, unless that of immediate vital danger to the majority. But for a minority to repress or punish the views of a majority—on this question there can be no debate. Every one with the merest inkling of reason must perceive the monstrosity of such a position. Torquemada himself might have been hard put to it to find an excuse for such a procedure. Yet this is what is done, under the name and sanction of an English Liberal Government, in Ireland at this very day. This is the main end and motive of the present leaders of the Orange section of the Loyalist party; to do this armed Loyalists march to peaceful meetings beneath the Orange flag ; to do this the great Conservative Party is mustering up its courage to refuse the extension of the franchise to county householders; to do this Irish members of Parliament are pursued by police, silenced at the dinner-table, and cast into gaol; to do this is the chief ostensible pretext for our rule in Ireland; to put an end to this is one of the most prominent reasons for which the inhabitants of that country demand Home Rule. I discriminated between the two aims of Orangeism as a whole; and it should be stated that there are numbers of Orangemen, certainly large numbers of Ulster Protestants, who are far from sharing in the intolerant spirit now beiiig described. They are simply anxious for the maintenance of their own rights; and although considerable numbers of them vote for “Liberal” members who do not advocate the Home Rule programme, yet they have sufficient sense to avoid the wretched brutality of landed bigotry at such places as Newry; and there is no reason to suppose that they would regard with aversion a Parliament in College Green in which Protestants stood on the same footing with Catholics, although on no higher one. A mutual defence association, however, is one thing, a mutual 36 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. league to injure one’s neighbours is another. The whole question may be put in a nutshell. What fraction are the Protestants of the population of Ireland ? One-fourth, nearly. What portion, then, of the public appointments, public emolu¬ ments, and general advantages might they with justice expect ? In the face of broad facts and broad principles, it is worse than useless, it is disingenuous, to urge particular exceptions. I believe a few instances might be pointed out of Catholics- obtaining high positions ; nay, more, it is possible that in some conspicuous situations, where the fact is most likely to attract public notice, the Catholics may be found in almost as great numbers as Protestants. It would, indeed, be foolish of any government not to appoint a Lord Chancellor or an Attorney- General here and there from the ranks of the (Loyal) Catholics. But in what walk of life, where success depends rather on influence than on merit, shall we find Catholics enjoying their fair three-fourths of the prizes ? With one-half they might possibly be contented, but they have not that. I could name a single public department in Dublin in which the eight highest officials, enjoying a total income superior to the salaries of the remaining twenty-four clerks below them, are Protestants to a man. In one Government office the clerks actually formed an Orange Lodge—unknown, let us hope, to the Government—and secured promotion by means of the intriguing thus carried on. But it is unnecessary to push the argument further. The facts are admitted. Apostasy or patricide are the two only steps to advancement in Ireland; and while this continues so,, the sight of a Catholic in high place is humiliating to his fellows without being creditable to the Government. The excuse put forward for all this is that the Orangemen are loyal to us, and that while we remain in Ireland we are bound to reward and encourage those, and those only, of its people whom we find well affected to our rule. The meaning of the word “ loyalty,” as understood in an Orange Lodge, however, is some¬ what different to that usually attached to it by outsiders. The enclosed extract from a letter by some person absolutely reeking with a union of Hibernian, inquisitorial, and slave-holding instincts, throws a flood of light upon this interesting subject. [The writer, after seeking to identify himself with Saxons, and to compare his fellow-countrymen to Maoris, proceeds :—} “ Here, merely because our deadliest enemies have white skins like ourselves, our nearest relatives persist in maintaining that we belong to the same race as these, our enemies, instead THE ORANGE SOCIETY. 37 of to their own, and profess themselves unable to understand why all our sympathies and interests should be English. They ignore the fact that we [i.e. Loyal Irishmen] are English in blood, language , and religion; and, of course, fail to understand our English sentiments and sympathies, our loyalty to our own race and our own Queen — i.e. to ourselves, in fact— our •law-abiding qualities, and our possession of all the other qualities which distinguish the Saxon from the Celt,” etc., etc. —Daily Express , Jan. 29, 1884. Passing over the minor peculiarities of this rich specimen, the insinuation that the Nationalists all talk Erse, and the reference to the law-abiding qualities of the police-defying mobs of the north,—passing over the trifling fact that one quality of the Saxon, reticence on his own merits, does not distinguish this writer, we must indeed acknowledge him to display a blunt candour which is truly refreshing, in his explanation of the term “ loyalty.” Henceforth, when English Liberals hear these men boast of their loyalty to the British connection, let them remember that fatal correction, “ i.e. to ourselves, in fact,” and sternly forbear to extend the meed of fellowship to a pack of selfish tyrants, dead to every sentiment of justice or humanity, religious only when they hate, English only when England is Orange, loyal only to their own disloyalty, bound by secret oaths to perpetuate a lawless domination, and restrained by nothing but force from emulating the worst outrages of an American planter, of a Spanish Inquisitor, or, in [one word, of their own ancestors in Ireland. This is the kind of loyalty that authorizes attacks on the police, and speeches such as that in which one leading orator is, he says, inaccurately, reported to have threatened to kick the Queen’s crown into the Boyne. Whatever be the words, the sentiment is there. These men are the secret and open, the . legal and unlawful tyrants of the country, and it is to keep them in their shameful elevation that our armies are employed and our wealth expended. For their sake we, as Liberals, are compelled to swallow our own principles, to vote for Coercion Acts which degrade us in our own eyes, to throttle the right of free speech in our own Parliament, and to record our votes in support of a Government whose enormities we admit, but which we would fain overlook. For their sake, for the sake of the revolvering ruffians of Londonderry and Tyrone, we are com¬ pelled to acts which not only destroy the moral basis of our rule, but which disgrace our country in the eyes of Europe. THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. 3S For their sakes we place the might and name of Great Britain^ athwart the stream of modern progress, and just as the Con¬ servatives are now ready to deprive us of the franchise rather than bestow it upon our fellow-sufferers in Ireland, so we drift year after year without obtaining those great legislative enact¬ ments which we so urgently need, because our representatives refuse to concede facilities for similar legislation to the repre¬ sentatives of the Irish people. Nor is this all. Hitherto I have referred to Orangeism under its normal condition, and certainly that is hideous enough. It now remains to be described as the Landlord’s Friend. Under this- heading I have as pretty an intrigue to disclose as could be desired by the deadliest Socialist. Of course, in most of the northern counties the landlords, that is, the aristocracy, patro¬ nize Orangeism to a certain extent, because its existence is a perpetual weapon in the hands of ascendency, and a standing proof that the Irish population is not unanimous in its desire for self-government! They have lately turned the organization to a use which was perhaps never dreamt of by its first founders. It will be recollected that the Land Act was obtained in consequence of an agitation which was principally fomented by public meetings in the open air. That Act, in the opinion, of most tenants, requires amendment. Accordingly the National League, which is at present principally occupied with agricultural interests, determined to set on foot a series of similar public meetings to test public opinion on this and other questions. Some of these meetings in the rebel provinces were suppressed on various pretexts, and at length they deter¬ mined to hold some meetings in loyal Ulster. Half the popu¬ lation of Tyrone being Catholic, and more than half in the tenant interest, that county was selected for the opening of the campaign, and a day fixed. And now occurred an event which, can only be paralleled by the Jingo attack on the Bradlaugh meeting in Hyde Park. The landlords rushed to the Orange Lodges, and invoked their assistance to put down the meeting by armed force. The cry of “No surrender!” was raised. Ulster was said to be suffering invasion, rebellion was rearing its serpent crest in the loyal province, and Popery was about to snatch a triumph over Protestantism. It was enough. The cry ran from Orange Lodge to Lodge, and though most of the farmers saw through the ruse, thousands of ignorant bigots, thirsting for Papist blood, repaired to the Nationalist trysting-place, and though no conflict actually occurred, neces- THE ORANGE SOCIETY. 39 sitated the employment of large bodies of police and soldiery to protect the unarmed Catholic from the revolvered mis¬ creants who degrade the name of the “ English religion.” Thus Ulster was gagged. Meanwhile the landlord stood smiling by, clutching his rack-rents in the depths of his pockets, and no doubt thanking the deity who presides over Orange Lodges for the British connection. Every one who has read the papers knows these things; why, then, is it necessary to repeat them ? Because they are glozed over, explained away, and actually lost sight of by intelligent statesmen, in their zeal for the British connection. There is hardly anything too inconsonant with fact, for a Chief Secretary to put forward in the House of Commons, or for the members of that House to accept. Let me explain this matter. Suppose an Irish member were to introduce a motion censuring an Irish official, and were to prove by every law of reasoning that the man was a scoundrel. The Castle would be bound, by the very honour of thieves, to concoct some statement in palliation. This would be sent over to its representative on the Treasury Bench. He, perhaps without committing himself to a belief in it, would give this statement to the House. What next ? Not one single member of the House would believe it, and yet, because they were afraid of defeating the Government, they would vote against the Irishman’s motion. Let the Government make it a question of confidence, and they can induce the House to vote that black is white—in Ireland. But unfortunately the matter is not confined to the House of Commons. The papers report the motion, the statement and the vote. Now, the English public believe the House of Commons to be infallible. Consequently, if the Government majority be three to one, we believe the statement composed by some clerk in a Dublin office to be three times truer than the facts of the case as reported to the Irish member, perhaps by a relation of his own on the spot at the time. This digression was needful to put the reader on his guard. The statements contained in these pages have been made in general terms, and are such as cannot be denied. But I had to forbear from detailed instances. Such would have overloaded a light work, and might perhaps have given opportunities for insidious criticism on trifling inaccuracies. I beg, therefore, to refer the reader to the reports of the Parliamentary debates. Let him read the statements of Irish members in a new light, not as the brazen falsehoods of rebel Papists whose religion 40 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. allows them to lie, but as the sincere disclosures of earnest men indignant at their country’s suffering. And let him read the replies from the Treasury Bench, not as the impartial declarations of a philosopher with superior means of arriving at truth, but as the plausible defence of a monstrous system, whose only safeguard is in the ignorance of its judges. “ I came, I saw,” I condemned. CHAPTER IX. ENGLAND AND IRELAND. “ Why is it our peculiar misfortune among nations to have Ireland to govern ? ” So writes, or is rumoured to have written, that nobleman whom the luminaries of the Carlton Club have selected as the future ruler of the British Empire. It appa¬ rently did not occur to this personage to ask, Why is it Ireland’s peculiar misfortune among nations to be governed by us ? Yet such an inquiry would have displayed no greater ignorance, and have partaken somewhat less of the nature of blasphemy. If the writer really wanted a reply, however, it would be easy to satisfy him. It is our misfortune to be suffering, slightly enough, for the crimes committed by those who ruled the country before our ancestors had votes or share in the government. A Cecil is responsible for some of the bloodiest pages of Irish history. And if we have not yet repealed that Act of Union which was passed in the golden age of rotten boroughs, con¬ tinental wars, and starvation of the poor, it is because we have been held back, led astray, and by various means deceived by the friends and allies in Ireland of the great Conservative party. In Ireland there is practically no distinction between Conservative and Whig. They may vote against each other in London, but they are staunch allies in their own dominion. And therefore we Liberals are, in this matter, dragged bound to the chariot-wheels of the anti-popular party. Our Government, then, the Castle Toryism which we support, is steadfastly engaged in the pleasing task of destroying a nationality, by emigration, coercion, and other similar mea¬ sures. One single little fact is eloquent in this connection. 42 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. It has been given before, but cannot be too often repeated. That passage in Scott’s works which runs— “ Breathes there the man, with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? ”— this was struck out of an Irish school-book by order of the Government. Let us strive to remember that this is the nine¬ teenth century, and the Liberals are in power. Very well; then this being so, the nation which is sought to be destroyed is struggling hard for life. It protests, and protests vigorously, against the blood-letting which is being used to weaken it—I refer to emigration. It denounces its tyrants, and struggles against the bonds by which it is held. By what code of morality shall it be condemned ? I mean, by what recognized code ; for of course Christian morality has nothing to do with public affairs nowadays. When great issues are at stake, party spirit is bound to run high. Exasperation is sure to be followed by the expression of indignation, and outrage is the inevitable consequence of oppression. True, these healthy symptoms have for the while been checked. We have been officially informed that the state of the country, gasping in the iron grip of coercion, is substantially improved. But I have no doubt that, on the eve of the last French revolution or two, that country was officially declared to be in a contented and satisfactory condition. The only substantial improvement for Ireland to receive is an increase of contentment, and the person who asserts that coercion produces contentment is unworthy of a reply. But the facts that Ireland is in an irritated and dangerous condition, that its people turn their hatred upon England as the cause of their sufferings, that its more violent spokesmen declare themselves to be at war with our country,—all these things need give us no anxiety as to the future. We are not to consider Irishmen as real enemies because they repudiate and defy our unjust usurpation of their government. It is as a mistress that Ireland hates Great Britain. This is no proof, but rather the contrary, that an Irish Parliament would be hostile to our own. Experience points the other way. Except those few who have been rendered absolutely rabid by their injuries received at the hands of England’s executive, most Irishmen privately admire England, and glory in belonging to the same great empire as ourselves. There is an effort, and a laudable one, now on ENGLAND AND ZEELAND. 43 - foot to excite a feeling of national self-confidence in the breast of the down-trodden Celt. Unfortunately, one method em¬ ployed for this end is reviling the neighbour country, or making such assertions as, for instance, in one leading Irish weekly—that a play by Denham (who was bom in Ireland) was “ little inferior to some of Shakespeare’s best efforts ” ! This kind of thing, however, need not alarm us. Nor is the common sense of Irishmen led astray by the wild talk of the Americanized whiskey-patriot. After all, the future of any country must be more or less a matter of opinion. But after mixing with people of every shade of politics in Ireland, my firm impression is that the establishment of Home Rule, in its most generous form, would result in a firm and lasting friendship between the two countries. Even as regards Ulster, there is no reason to apprehend anything of a very serious nature. I can testify in the strongest manner to the fact that the nation is proud of Ulster, and proud of the heroic memories of the North. Among the most Catholic Nationalists, there is a warm feeling towards their Protestant fellow-countrymen, and a genuine disdain for the arts by which landlords have lately sought to arouse the fires of bigotry, and inflame the differences between North and South. Efforts are constantly made to fraternize with the inhabitants of Ulster. In fact, everything points to the supposition that national independence would be followed by the disappearance of much of the hostility that yet exists in the neighbourhood of the Boyne. At the present moment the Catholics of Ireland are undoubtedly more tolerant than the Protestants. I have met plenty of the latter who would gladly repeal the Emancipa¬ tion Act, and deprive every Catholic of a vote. In almost every instance, moreover, of a Protestant being ill-treated by Catholics, it will be found that nationalism, and not religion, is the real cause. In fact, as I have explained, the Pope would not permit much intolerance to be displayed, because such an exhibition would injure his prospects in England. Nor would the Pope’s influence, if exerted in the other direction, be without a check. There are thousands upon thousands of real Catholics in this country who, if the Vatican and Mr. Parnell issued contradictory orders to-morrow, would disobey the former. The Tribute showed this. The Church may think herself able to dismiss Mr. Parnell when his work is done, but it is extremely doubtful whether she would be able. Liberal principles have, under Mr. Parnell’s regime , struck their 44 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. roots deep into the soil of the country, and when Ireland is freed, it will be with a greater freedom than she could have received fifty years ago. We may dismiss the fear, therefore, of an outbreak of civil war in the North. Orangemen brag, but they do not fight. They are very brave when they carry firearms and their enemies only sticks, but their battle-fury sensibly dwindles at the sight of cold steel. At present they are the only people in the country, except the genteel classes, who are allowed to possess arms; consequently they are proud of their superiority. But this state of things, at least, would not exist under Home Rule. And when the heroes of Dromore found themselves to be but one small faction in a large, loyal, and equally well-armed nation, we should probably see their fiery legions melt away, “ like the leaves of the forest, when autumn hath blown.” One thing must be allowed, that, if there is to be any oppression, it ought to be by the majority. If one million or four millions must suffer, let it be the one million, in the name of justice. But there is no reason to anticipate anything of the sort. Those men who find it impossible to dwell beneath a Catholic rule had better emigrate. It is better for one million to have to do so, than for three, which number of the others has already gone. But Ireland had a Catholic Parliament once before, and very fair it seems to have been. No ; Ireland has suffered more in the struggle for liberty than any other nation that can be mentioned; and a nation that has loved liberty so well cannot—and I will be bold to say, will not—fail to make good use of it when won. Although these chapters have been devoted mainly to advocating the restoration of Ireland’s Parliament on moral grounds, I am not blind to the fact that readers may be largely swayed by motives of self-interest. If I can prove it to be to the advantage of the Liberal party, I shall have added to the strength of my case, without weakening the force of the moral reasoning employed. In the first place, then, it is of first-class importance to any nation that its councils be directed by sound, upright principles. Injustice, sooner or later, will recoil on the heads of the unjust. The statesmanship of corruption has ever paved the way to revolution or destruction. It is the peculiar boast of the English people, and of Liberals all over the world, that they aim at conducting public affairs in accord¬ ance with the rules of modern enlightenment; that is to say, on a basis of toleration and equity. Nevertheless, as if I had not ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 45 said enough to persuade every honest man, I will now direct a last argument to the self-interest of my audience, the Liberal party. And I chose the word Liberal in preference to the r word Radical, because it embraces a wider scope, because it means not merely a practical reformer, but also a tolerant philosopher and a friend to humanity. We have now had a majority in the House of Commons t for nearly four years : what has it given us during that time ? The Married Women’s Property and the Bankruptcy Acts. Four years of the greatest Liberal majority ever known have produced such results. And wherefore? Because we were haunted with the restless nightmare of Ireland; because the Irish members came prepared to deny us the right which we denied them ; because legislation for a country few of us ever saw had to be transacted—legislation that has produced little solid result, thanks to the Conservatives, the Castle, and the Land Commissioners. Yet more, the seats of our members are insecure, thanks to the doubtful disposition of the Irish voters who swarm in all our towns, driven from their own land by a conservative Government. These men are well organ¬ ized, and at a word from their leader are able to destroy the choice of a constituency by throwing their weight into the scale of the minority. Yet again, the competition of all these men overstocks our labour market and injures our artisans—yes, you, mechanics and workmen, are injured !—by the lower rate of wages on which Irishmen will undertake to live. I say nothing as to their suitability as neighbours. Whereas if Ireland were set free, these men would hasten back; Irish manufactories would be started and protected for their employ¬ ment; so that although English manufacturers might lose a market, English workmen would not suffer, because they would lose a straining competition. And in addition to these evils, enemies are being raised up to our nation in foreign lands. Millions of Irishmen by descent as well as by birth are grow¬ ing up beneath the shadow of the Stars and Stripes, filled with a hatred to England which surpasses even the hatred of a Chinaman or an Egyptian. The babe, as he kneels by his mother’s side in the Irish home on the Mississippi, is taught * to lisp a curse on the cruel country which drove that mother from her childhood’s cottage and her native land. And all for what ? Who benefits by the horrid system ? Not we. We are but tools in the hands of these designing despots who appeal to 45 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. our Protestant sympathies on behalf of Calvinistic Torque- madas, to our national sympathies on behalf of timorous North Hibernian bullies. They tell us that we shall weaken the empire, when they know that we shall surely strengthen it, by * placing the union between the two islands on the only sound basis, that of mutual rights and liberties. No practical Irish¬ man desires total separation, although if he did that ought not to make us pause. But I do not expect every one to see V this in the same light. I do not expect every one to say, Perish the British interest that conflicts with eternal justice! Nevertheless, I am persuaded that an Irish Republic would be better for us than the present political situation. Yet this is not even asked for. An alliance between the two countries is a mutual advantage. Where do our interests conflict ? Are not fellow-countrymen of both carrying the flag of civilization to every corner of the earth, to America, to Africa, and to Australia ? Fellow-countrymen, the hour is striking! The woes of seven centuries approach their end. It is your glorious privi¬ lege to strike off the manacle which your ancestors saw im¬ posed. It is the allotted task of the English people to wipe out the stain cast by the Norman aristocracy upon the scutcheon , of our land. You have achieved freedom for yourselves; it remains for you to join in the emancipation of your brethren. Fear not to do this thing, for if justice be done injury cannot result. Purge your minds of the bias which early training has imparted, and look at this land that has lain for so long beneath the weight of oppression and the bitterness of disdain. Other lands have fought for freedom, and have tasted of its fruits; but if long ages of struggling and suffering, if the endurance of massacre and famine, of every hardship which her masters could inflict, if the deepest sorrow and the strongest love can count as claims to freedom, never has any land deserved like this one to be set free. Let the Celtic nation thrive In the brotherhood of nations, Showing yet another side Of our many-sided nature, And developing fresh types, ^ Useful, of Humanity. 4 ( 47 ) $ POSTSCRIPT. TO ENLIGHTENED IRISHMEN. It will surprise some of my English readers to learn that I deem it necessary to apologize to you for the contents of this pamphlet. Yet I am aware that I have fallen far short of my aim when I commenced; that I have afforded but an inade¬ quate sketch of a vast and intricate subject It is but too probable that I have in some instances failed to do justice to what I attempted to describe, and I wish to assure you that any such omission is due not to ill will or coldness in the cause I advocated. In some cases my knowledge may have been defective, in others I was obliged to temper the tone of my comments to the ear of an audience unaccustomed to hear the truth about Ireland. In reference to my remarks on the Vatican, it will be well to call your attention to the fact that that body is treated purely in a political light. I studiously avoided all reference to what I felt to be religious questions; and I must claim the right, so long as the Pope assumes temporal functions, of criticizing his action like that of any other statesman. This liberty is permitted even to Catholics. In the Middle Ages, kings actually waged war upon the Pontiff, but that did not cause them to incur excommunication. And I must with great deference warn you to keep on your guard in this respect. 8 For instance, a secret plan was lately exposed for transporting Irishmen to a wild region in British North America. This was to protect them against the contagion of American free- thought. It will be remembered that the Connaught clergy * did not lead, although it echoed the denunciation of this 4 8 THE TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND. scheme. I am not disputing that death by freezing may be a preferable fate to corruption by free-thought. But I wish to point out. that Catholicism is not in such and other cases identical with Nationalism. I do not believe that any fair- minded man will condemn me on this account. If I have not occupied myself much with the praises of Ireland in this treatise, it is because the time for a just appre¬ ciation of this country by England has not yet arrived. More¬ over, I believe that solid work in your cause is more accep¬ table than mere flattery. Brevity was an object. I said all I could, not all I wished. My most earnest hope, next to that of persuading my own countrymen, is that I have said nothing that will displease my friends in Ireland. One last word. I would take advantage of this opportunity to appeal for a nobler attitude on the part of some of your countrymen towards Englishmen. “Let the dead past bury its dead.” Do not carry your just hatred of oppression to the extreme of hating every native of the land which oppresses. Recollect that descendants of both countries are fraternizing in America, that in the future England is destined to be your own close ally. It is hardly generous to America or Australia to carry hatred into those hospitable lands, and disturb their peace and prosperity by the pursuit of foreign politics and dangerous designs against a land with which they are closely allied. You cannot, if you would, destroy your world-citizen¬ ship ; you are not only Irishmen, but men, and it should be your glory to prevent the past tyranny of one nation interfering with your brotherhood with all. You are aware that the idea of a total disconnection with England is an impossibility, so long as that island borders upon your own. You cannot efface your relations with any part of the world—not with Africa, or India, or China; you cannot be independent of the sun itself, though that is a hundred millions of miles away; how, then, can you look forward to such independence of a land which well-nigh touches your own, whose language you speak and whose coal you burn ? But I do not despair of your generosity; I hope yet to see you working in full accord with the truly liberal men of this as of every other country; for it is of the nature of human animosities to perish, and of noble principles to endure. PRINTED BY 'WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.